"Be much in eyeing those patterns
of lowliness and humility which I already mentioned. God, angels, and saints, have cast
you a copy of it. But especially be much in viewing the humility and humiliation of the
Son of God, which is proposed as the great pattern."

"The "living hope" that belongs to the good news of Christ's resurrection even in the midst of persecution and suffering that marked the theme of last Sunday's reading from the opening verses of 1 Peter still undergirds and shapes the reading for today which stands at the conclusion of this letter. "

"1 Peter reminds us that what is at stake in the sufferings of Christ-believers is not so much what they believed but what they did. Because they believed that Christ was Lord, and not Caesar, they strived to establish communities marked by love and solidarity rather than by hierarchy and a system of patronage and debt."

"Without
the orientation toward Christ, the morning star who knows no
setting, we falter and stray into futile ways. We lose our sense of
a transformed belonging to a different people, and instead
conform ourselves to the cultures among whom we pass our days."

"Sometimes Christians deserve the
ridicule they get and it is easy create one's own alienation and rejection
by inappropriate and insensitive behaviour. But what if it is about the core
issues of human rights and human dignity?"

"Thus, biblical humility is not
being a doormat for an uncaring omnipotent taskmaster ... No, biblical humility is not
self-deprecation or a dispensing of our self-esteem. Just the opposite. It is recognition
that our worth is to be found in our Maker."